Salisbury Incident: Further Update | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-14a.854.6&p=24845#g880.1
I endorse the actions that the Prime Minister has taken and the unavoidable conclusion she has come to. Was she as disappointed as I was that shortly after the powerful and excellent statement...I endorse the actions that the Prime Minister has taken and the unavoidable conclusion she has come to. Was she as disappointed as I was that shortly after the powerful and excellent statement from Secretary of State Tillerson he lost his job in the Trump Administration? Will she pass on to President Trump the message of how much we supported the words of Tillerson and encourage President Trump to ensure that the person he appoints as his replacement is equally robust about the dangers from Russia?]]>2018-03-14T12:49:00+00:00Engagements | Oral Answers to Questions - Prime Minister | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-07c.297.4&p=24845#g310.2
Is it Government policy that England should pull out of the World cup? If not, what on earth was the Foreign Secretary on about yesterday?Is it Government policy that England should pull out of the World cup? If not, what on earth was the Foreign Secretary on about yesterday?]]>2018-03-07T00:00:00+00:00ATP Tennis Tournament | Oral Answers to Questions - Scotland | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-07c.296.10&p=24845#g297.0
I am very encouraged to hear that. As we look towards the legacy of Andy Murray, the greatest British tennis player ever, it would be great to see the UK Government, the Scottish Government and...I am very encouraged to hear that. As we look towards the legacy of Andy Murray, the greatest British tennis player ever, it would be great to see the UK Government, the Scottish Government and perhaps even Glasgow City Council working together with the Lawn Tennis Association to make a profitable tennis tournament at ATP elite level.]]>2018-03-07T00:00:00+00:00ATP Tennis Tournament | Oral Answers to Questions - Scotland | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-07c.296.10&p=24845#g296.11
If he will make it his policy to work with the Scottish Government and the Lawn Tennis Association on hosting an ATP World Tour tennis tournament in Scotland.If he will make it his policy to work with the Scottish Government and the Lawn Tennis Association on hosting an ATP World Tour tennis tournament in Scotland.]]>2018-03-07T00:00:00+00:00Points of Order | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-06b.200.0&p=24845#g200.5
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. To be fair, the Foreign Secretary qualified his comments by saying: &#8220;If things turn out to be as many Members&#8230;suspect they will&#8221;. He...Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. To be fair, the Foreign Secretary qualified his comments by saying: “If things turn out to be as many Members…suspect they will”. He did not say, “If there is no improvement in relations,” so he was very specific. He is saying that if things are as we suspect they are, he will call into question whether we should appear at the World cup. That is a fairly substantial policy declaration, so I wonder whether we should ask him to make a statement to the House to that effect.]]>2018-03-06T14:19:00+00:00Points of Order | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-06b.200.0&p=24845#g200.3
Further&#8212;Further—]]>2018-03-06T14:19:00+00:00Points of Order | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-06b.200.0&p=24845#g200.1
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the Foreign Secretary&#8217;s response to an urgent question a few minutes ago, he said: &#8220;Thinking ahead to the World cup this summer, it is very...On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the Foreign Secretary’s response to an urgent question a few minutes ago, he said: “Thinking ahead to the World cup this summer, it is very difficult to imagine how UK representation at that event could go ahead in the normal way”. If the Foreign Secretary is saying that England should pull out of the World cup, the consequences would be absolutely massive for the travel industry and other businesses, as well as the media and the tens of thousands of supporters who intend to travel. Have you heard, Mr Speaker, whether there will be a statement to that effect? If not, we should ask the Foreign Secretary to come back very quickly to explain such an important claim.]]>2018-03-06T14:19:00+00:00Government Policy on Russia | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-03-06b.168.7&p=24845#g179.4
The Foreign Secretary, like many other people, has spoken powerfully about the extent to which Russia&#8212;while not at war with us&#8212;can be seen only as an enemy of the best interests of...The Foreign Secretary, like many other people, has spoken powerfully about the extent to which Russia—while not at war with us—can be seen only as an enemy of the best interests of the United Kingdom. On that basis, is it not time to review whether we should continue to sit on the UN Security Council and have Russia in a position where it is able to decide whether the actions that we take with our military are lawful?]]>2018-03-06T12:41:00+00:00*No heading* | Ministry of Defence | Written Answershttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2018-03-05.904174.h&p=24845#g904174.q0
What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for the armed forces; and if he will make a statement.What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for the armed forces; and if he will make a statement.]]>2018-03-05T00:00:00+00:00Points of Order | Office for Students | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-27c.702.6&p=24845#g704.8
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In my question, I described Toby Young as an old Etonian. I am sure he has been called worse, and I could have used many other phrases, but apparently he was not...On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In my question, I described Toby Young as an old Etonian. I am sure he has been called worse, and I could have used many other phrases, but apparently he was not educated there and so that should not be added to his charge sheet. Will you therefore allow me the opportunity to correct the record?]]>2018-02-27T13:44:00+00:00Points of Order | Office for Students | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-27c.702.6&p=24845#g704.2
rose&#8212;rose—]]>2018-02-27T13:44:00+00:00Office for Students | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-27c.694.5&p=24845#g700.3
The Minister has the audacity to talk about casting the net wider when another old Etonian mate of his friends has been appointed through a process that was utterly corrupt. The report says that...The Minister has the audacity to talk about casting the net wider when another old Etonian mate of his friends has been appointed through a process that was utterly corrupt. The report says that the key question is whether each candidate was treated fairly and impartially; the answer here is no.

The Government are in absolute disarray, and the Minister is making the situation worse. He says that he is willing to learn lessons. Will he at least confront the fact that this process is not fit for a modern nation like ours?

]]>2018-02-27T13:16:00+00:00Ministry of Defence | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-26b.567.0&p=24845#g619.0
The Minister is right in what he says, so what pressure is the UK putting on those other NATO nations, both diplomatically and publicly, to get them up to the 2%? I would like to see a lot more...The Minister is right in what he says, so what pressure is the UK putting on those other NATO nations, both diplomatically and publicly, to get them up to the 2%? I would like to see a lot more done, when the Prime Minister is stood with other leaders, to put pressure on them to achieve that.]]>2018-02-26T20:07:00+00:00Ministry of Defence | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-26b.567.0&p=24845#g593.0
The scale of the cuts we have experienced in defence are genuinely endangering our ability and the Government&#8217;s ability to protect our nation. I maintain the point that I made earlier. It...The scale of the cuts we have experienced in defence are genuinely endangering our ability and the Government’s ability to protect our nation.

I maintain the point that I made earlier. It is tremendously disappointing that the Secretary of State is not here to respond to the debate. I take the Minister’s point about the fact that the Secretary of State is meeting the Prime Minister. I am sure she is a busy woman and he is a busy man, but, given how much we read about how extensively the Secretary of State is supposed to be lobbying for defence spending, it would have been good if he had been here.

I have been in the position of being on the Front Bench and having people complain about the fact that I am the one responding. It is meant as no insult to the Minister. In my opinion, he might make a better Secretary of State than the one we have at the moment, but I do not mean to undermine his career by saying so. I would prefer it even more if my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) was the Secretary of State. I say again, it would have been good if the Secretary of State had been here.

I repeat the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon): it would be a tremendous shame if the Minister was forced into a position where he felt he had to resign because of the level of cuts to the Ministry of Defence. He would be a loss to the Government. I know how seriously he takes his position and what an agony it would be for him if he had to do so, so I hope he is not placed in that position.

The truth is that this Government have presided over a scale of cuts and over the failure of armed forces recruitment that we have seen. The Government have presided over huge cuts—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State’s arrival shows the power of my speeches. Not only have the Government broken their 2015 manifesto pledge to retain a standing Army of 82,000, but we continue to see more people leaving the Army than joining it, and under this Government military housing is in a disgraceful state.

The Government have announced numerous unfunded spending commitments, which are estimated by the National Audit Office to have left a £21 billion black hole, and they have achieved their commitment to continue spending 2% of GDP on defence by including things that would never previously have been included. I have to say—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who was previously on the Front Bench, would repeat this with feeling—that if any Labour Secretary of State for Defence had presided over such a record, the right-wing press would be demanding their head on a platter in a way that defied anything previously seen in the press.

The moment is arriving when the Government must decide what their story is. We are hearing that the country faces very significant new threats. The scale of the threat from Russia has grown to its greatest extent at any time since the cold war. Brexit means that a not insignificant element of our key partners’ defence response will take place through an institution that we are no longer a part of. There is an urgent need to scale up our cyber and hybrid warfare capabilities. We have observed the extent of Russia’s upscaling of its capabilities, and we need to take action to ensure that we are responding. We are also seeing regular incursions by Russian aircraft and submarines into UK space, and an increasingly aggressive posture by Russia and Putin. If all those things are true—I believe they are, and we have heard from credible sources that they are—it is unconscionable for defence spending to have such a low priority in the apparent strategic approach of the wider Government.

As my hon. Friend has said, the roots of the current defence spending crisis lie in the disastrous 2010 SDSR, and the Government must be held to account for their performance. The real-terms funding cut in the departmental expenditure limit since 2010 is almost £10 billion. As my colleagues have said, this is an extraordinary amount out of a budget that was about £40 billion back in 2010, and this at a time when inflation in defence equipment and skill shortages has grown substantially. It is therefore impossible to take seriously the suggestion that the Prime Minister is presiding over a Government who have our nation’s future safe in their hands.

I have long feared that the announcements made in the 2015 SDSR on future defence procurement bore no relation to the budgets set for it. I thought that the 2015 SDSR was a considerable improvement on what had gone before—that may be setting a low bar, but it was an improvement—and it is important to recognise that. However, if the budgets from the Treasury for the Ministry of Defence do not bear any relationship to what is promised, it is incumbent on all of us to highlight that. The NAO figures showing a £21 billion black hole demonstrate that I was right to be suspicious.

The Government should come clean. I am absolutely calling on the Government to bring forward more money, but if they are not going to do that—if the Treasury is not willing to come up with the amount of money required to fill the black hole—the Government must be candid with Parliament and with the people about which of the spending commitments made in the SDSR are not going to happen.

The Government will get so far in bridging the gap by putting off decisions and allowing timescales to slide, such as with the commitment on the Type 26s. There is now a commitment—or a theoretical commitment—on Type 31s, but I suspect the actual development of the frigate will continue to be pushed into the long grass. Each of these delays both undermines the ability of our armed forces to respond and increases the demand on the servicemen and women on the existing platforms.

I am immensely proud of the UK’s commitment to the aircraft carriers. They are a piece of collateral that the whole nation should take pride in. It was a really important announcement—initially by the previous Labour Government and subsequently by the coalition Government —to commission and then to build them. However, the scale of the current cuts calls into question the amount of resources required by the aircraft carriers. In 2009-10, when the idea was initially put in place to go forward with the aircraft carriers, the Government were spending, in today’s terms, about £45 billion a year on the armed forces. With a Government who are now spending £35 billion, it is a different decision, and it has to be placed in the context of the scale of subsequent Government spending cuts to the MOD.

The Government appear to have a strategy of not going forward with more Type 26 frigates, but of having a greater number of Type 31s instead. That means we will have less capable ships, but they can be in more different places at the same time. As I have said, this calls into question the amount of resources—both financial resources and personnel—that the aircraft carriers will be consuming. Whether the Government would have commissioned two aircraft carriers if the scale of the subsequent cuts had been known about at the time is an important question.

I asked the Minister for the Armed Forces a parliamentary question about the scale of current recruitment and retention performance, and almost all the major arms of the Army lost more people last year than they recruited. The Royal Regiment of Artillery lost 170 more people than it recruited; the Royal Engineers, 130; the Royal Corps of Signals, 270; the infantry, 750; and the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, 100. There was a similar picture for the reserves, which we were told would make up some of the deficit. In the Army future reserves, the Royal Engineers lost 50 more people than it recruited; the Royal Corps of Signals, 20; the Royal Logistic Corps, 200; and REME, 160. Right across the Army, more people have left the service than have been recruited.

This reduction is to an Army that is already significantly under the numbers promised in the Conservative party manifesto of 2015. I believe I am right in saying that a standing Army of 82,000 is no longer the policy of the Government, although they have never officially come out and said that. It is very clear that a significant commitment was made in the 2015 general election—it was a very popular commitment—and they should be held to account for delivering on it.

Soldier numbers in our Army, which were stable throughout the previous Labour Government—they actually went up during the last five years of the Labour Government—have fallen from 98,340 in 2010 to 73,870 now. It is interesting that while there has been a fall of 25% in the number of soldiers, there has been a fall of only 15% in the number of officers. It is an interesting development for a Government who pride themselves—or claim to pride themselves—on defending the frontline that we have seen a bigger decrease in the ranks than in the officer numbers, and that is significant.

There is clearly a significant funding element to the fall in Army numbers, but there are also a number of other reasons why they are in such a distressing state. Morale among members of our armed forces continues to be challenged both by the demands placed on them and by issues such as pay and pensions, the quality of housing and the number of times that they have to go repeatedly on different kinds of deployments because of the shortage in numbers.

There is also real fear among our armed forces regarding this place’s commitment to actually using the Army. Our 2013 debate about airstrikes in Syria, which was referred to a great deal in the response to the urgent question immediately before this debate, called into question this place’s commitment to keeping an Army and being willing to use it. I get a strong sense from my responsibilities on the armed forces parliamentary scheme that there are people in our Army who think it is legitimate to question what we in this place actually see as their role and our willingness to deploy them.

The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) made a strong point about the outsourcing partner’s performance on recruitment and demanded that it step up or ship out. He did not quite put it like that—I am paraphrasing—but he was absolutely right. As I have said in previous debates—I do not apologise for saying so again—it would be beneficial if the Government published the number of people in each constituency who are recruited to the armed forces, so that we can take pride in our constituents. That would also enable us to hold to account the outsourcing company for its performance with regard not only to the overall numbers that it recruits, but to where it is recruiting them from and the extent to which it is achieving its aims.

I thank the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) for introducing the debate. I say to the Minister and to the Secretary of State, who popped in but has popped out again—[Interruption.] I apologise: I expected him to be on the Front Bench. He has popped back, not popped out. I say to him that he can be absolutely certain that there is a real commitment among Members to strengthen his arm in his negotiations with the Treasury. We wish him every success and he can be absolutely certain that he will have our support if he is able to get from future spending reviews the resources that our armed forces need and deserve.

]]>2018-02-26T18:27:00+00:00Ministry of Defence | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-26b.567.0&p=24845#g585.2
I partly take the right hon. Gentleman&#8217;s point, if he is looking back to 1963 and the role of successive Governments from then to now. But it is also true that there was a substantial cut...I partly take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, if he is looking back to 1963 and the role of successive Governments from then to now. But it is also true that there was a substantial cut in defence spending in 2010-11, which bears no relationship to what happened in the previous 13 years. If defence spending had carried on increasing in real terms from 2009-10 to the present, £10 billion more would be being spent on defence than is spent under this Government. That is a substantial change from this Government to the previous one.]]>2018-02-26T17:45:00+00:00Ministry of Defence | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-26b.567.0&p=24845#g578.0
My hon. Friend is making an important point about the numbers, but does she share my concern that a huge amount of experience is being lost from our military? There are people performing roles...My hon. Friend is making an important point about the numbers, but does she share my concern that a huge amount of experience is being lost from our military? There are people performing roles with a few years’ experience who would have taken 10 or 15 years to reach that position in the past, and the experience of many of them—excellent soldiers and sailors though they are—might come under pressure in the fiercest of circumstances.]]>2018-02-26T17:07:00+00:00Ministry of Defence | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-26b.567.0&p=24845#g573.1
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is absolutely right. In December 2017, not only were none of our destroyers out, but, as revealed by an answer to my parliamentary...I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is absolutely right. In December 2017, not only were none of our destroyers out, but, as revealed by an answer to my parliamentary question, for the first time in history not a single Royal Navy frigate or destroyer was deployed overseas. That demonstrates powerfully the scale of the pressure on our Royal Navy and its lack of capability.]]>2018-02-26T16:40:00+00:00Ministry of Defence | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-26b.567.0&p=24845#g569.0
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and thank him for achieving this debate. Is he surprised and disappointed that the Secretary of State is not here to respond? We are very much...I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and thank him for achieving this debate. Is he surprised and disappointed that the Secretary of State is not here to respond? We are very much aware, through the press, that the Secretary of State appears to be pushing for greater budgets for the armed forces. It would have been nice if he had been here today to tell us all about the work he is doing.]]>2018-02-26T16:40:00+00:00Child-to-Parent Violence - [Geraint Davies in the Chair] | Westminster Hall debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2018-02-21a.140.3&p=24845#g141.1
I beg to move, That this House has considered child-to-parent violence. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Child-to-parent violence is a very significant issue...I beg to move,

That this House has considered child-to-parent violence.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Child-to-parent violence is a very significant issue that, too often, is not spoken about. A parent in Chesterfield first raised the issue with me as part of a wider discussion about the paucity of support that they had received from Derbyshire County Council. As an adoptive parent, I was alarmed to learn of Adoption UK’s recent survey to which 3,000 of its 8,000 members responded. The survey revealed that as many as 63% of parents said that their adopted child had displayed aggressive behaviour. That followed Al Coates’ survey, which showed that 30% of adopters have experienced regular child-to-parent violence. The issue also affects around 3% of all families—some 330,000 children.

I will take this opportunity to highlight this important issue and invite the Minister, and all of us, to consider the extent to which current local authority interventions equip social workers and parents to tackle CPV. I will reflect on recent research in more detail and on the role that local authority funding cuts play in our ability to support successful adoptions. I will also ask whether the balance between protecting children and supporting their families is appropriately weighted. Finally, I would like to learn more about the specific steps that the Government are taking to investigate the scale of the issue and the support that they could put in place to help families.

Much of my contribution will focus on violence in families with adopted children, but clearly this is not purely an adoption issue. Families who have not adopted and do not have social services’ input or a diagnosis that explains why there are such problems can be even more isolated and alone, but my focus is predominantly on child-to-parent violence in adoptive families.

As parents, many of us worry that we are failing to live up to a media ideal of the perfect parent—I say that as the parent of a 19-year-old and a 15-year-old. As a nation, we are ludicrously time poor. The pressure on families to make ends meet and the demanding working environment that many families face, coupled with competing demands on our children, mean that modern parenting is a fraught business under the best of circumstances.

For adoptive parents, those pressures are often magnified. Three quarters of adopted children enter the care system because of abuse or neglect. Babies and children who have been victims of violence or physical, sexual or psychological abuse or have witnessed it routinely, who have been left to scavenge in bins because of neglectful or substance-dependent parents, or who have been left in the appalling situation of having to take over the parenting role at a very young age because of the inadequacy of their parent, will have experienced a level of trauma that can stay with them all their lives. Even in the womb, many children have disadvantages such as foetal alcohol syndrome or foetal alcohol spectrum disorders placed in their way. Chaotic, disruptive and disorienting experiences in the early years of children and babies, when they are at their most vulnerable, inevitably stockpiles future crises. It is a truism that hurt children hurt, and many adopted children have been badly hurt by the time they are adopted.

Adopting a child is not much like the brochures would have us believe. Adoption is not a silver bullet that takes children away from a bad situation and places them in a benign and friendly one that washes away all the scars of the past. One third of adoptive parents surveyed said that their local authority had withheld important information about their child before the adoption. Of course it is important that adopters are encouraged to come forward, and it is gratifying that despite all these problems, 88% of adoptive parents say they would still adopt and are glad they did. However, attracting adopters should never come at the expense of a pragmatic and realistic description of what life for an adopting parent can be like and of the many challenges that their children and family are likely to face. An appalling statistic that should give us all pause for thought is that children who have been adopted are 20 times more likely to be excluded from school and twice as likely not to achieve five good GCSEs.

Our starting point in countering child-to-parent violence must be to recognise the scale of the issue and ensure that it is widely discussed within the social work profession and more widely among adopter families. Parents who experience child-to-parent violence often question their own parenting and start to blame themselves. They wonder whether it is because of something that they have done, and whether if they had only taken a different strategy things would have been different. They take all sorts of steps to try to prevent it and they think it is a mark of their own failure. What they need is a support network that offers them strategies and understanding, rather than reinforcing the idea that they are to blame and that they and their families have become victims of violence as a result of their parenting.

We need a culture in which social workers realise that their work is not finished the minute the care order is signed and that adopted children need more support than other children. Supporting the family is part of that. After my wife and I adopted in 2004, we had a couple of cursory meetings in the run-up to getting the care order but, broadly speaking, that was it. After that stage, unless parents phone the social workers to say that there is a problem, they often get no further contact.

Many parents who experience violence from their children worry that if they highlight the extent of the problem, their parenting ability will be questioned and they will be taken down the route of child protection and investigations into their parenting, rather than the supportive environment they should have. Al Coates MBE—an adopter, a qualified social worker and a member of the Adoption Support Fund expert advisory group to the Department for Education—has interviewed many social workers and discovered that very few had had any formal training about child-to-parent violence.

The work of Al Coates and Dr Wendy Thorley, based on a survey of approximately 260 adopters, has led to a report called “Child-Parent Violence (CPV): an exploratory exercise”, which uncovered that as many as 30% of adopters had experienced violence. It also undermined the preconception evident in the Home Office report on adolescent-to-parent violence that this is an issue that relates to adolescence. It exposed the fact that the incidence of violence to parents is higher among seven to 11-year-olds than among children aged 12-plus. It also revealed that child-to-parent violence is at the heart of many families in crisis and is a growing problem that, like many other forms of domestic violence, is hugely under-reported. Highlighting the issue and ending the culture of parental blame will help to address that under-reporting. It is important that we all play a role in ensuring that adoptive parents recognise that child-to-parent violence is a common challenge faced by many others, not a sign of their own failure. The Government should commission or support much more detailed studies of child-to-parent violence in adoptive families.

CPV will not begin to be addressed until there is wider acceptance of the scale of the crisis in child social work. A combination of growing caseloads, shrinking budgets, higher public and Government expectations, a more violent society and more family breakdowns is stretching the system to breaking point. A BBC freedom of information request has revealed a 25% increase in long-term sick leave among social workers since 2012-13. In the 135 councils that responded to the request, 1,911 social workers had been off sick for more than a month. That mirrors my own experience and that of many adopters whom I have supported or met: when we try to pursue issues or get support, the social worker dealing with the matter is often off sick and the person who comes in instead has only a very scant knowledge of the case history. They take an immediate look at whether the child is in danger, but if that is not the case, the support the family receive is very small.

The scale of social worker absenteeism and sickness is simply unsustainable. It inevitably means that corners will be cut, warning signs will be missed and the quality of interactions with families will be diminished. An obvious impact is that social worker caseloads will grow and many of the interventions that would support families and prevent them from reaching crisis point will play second fiddle to addressing immediate crises. Children who hurt others but who are not themselves at risk of being hurt will be seen as less of a priority.

Recent research by the British Association of Social Workers showed that social workers put in an average of 10 hours of unpaid work each week to try to manage their case loads. The scale of local authority cuts makes tragedies inevitable. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that English councils faced a 27% cut in their spending power under the five years of the coalition Government and that the pace of those cuts has continued since then. In the early years, there may have been fat for councils to trim, but that fat has now gone. Every day, social workers battle with life-and-death decisions that undermine their ability to provide the service that their clients have a right to expect.

Councils in the areas of greatest deprivation have faced the largest cuts, which is indefensible. In recent weeks, we have seen the dam start to burst, with Tory councils in Northamptonshire and Surrey sending out warning signals about their finances. If those councils are struggling, imagine how difficult it is for councils in areas of greater deprivation. To continue to deliver spending cuts of the size currently being implemented is to accept that social worker absence will continue to rise, and more children and families will fail to receive the support they need. I make a real plea for future local government spending rounds to recognise that further council cuts will cost vulnerable children their lives and leave far too many families in crisis.

In addition to addressing the funding issues, the Government should look closely at the direction provided to social workers and to all those involved in the support of children and families. Child protection and the needs of the child are at the core of the Children Act 1989, but using them as the guiding principle often leaves families outside the room when key decisions are being made about their future.

I question whether a relentless focus on protection of the child that overlooks the needs of their families is actually advantageous to the children who we seek to protect. Often the prioritisation of social work case loads will be based on whether a child is at immediate physical risk. Often, children who are violent to their parents or siblings are not themselves seen as being at risk, even though such violence can often be the cause of an adoption breaking down. A more holistic view, which recognised violent children within a family unit as a crisis in itself, would lead to better outcomes.

Given the scale of adoptive families who are affected by this issue, as suggested by the research I have cited, there is an argument for greater counselling and therapies for children post-adoption before the crisis manifests itself, and a much more substantial commitment to adopter support would prevent families from reaching crisis point and may well save money in the long run.

The Government’s Adoption Support Fund is a welcome development, but the cap on funding and the number of councils refusing to match fund therapies demonstrate the limitations of the current approach. When the Minister responds to the debate, can she say what representations she will make to the Treasury about the scale of the financial crisis facing councils, and the difficulty that crisis places on the Home Office in supporting local authorities to keep people safe?

I was very conscious in calling for this debate that this issue goes across three different ministerial Departments: the Department for Education, which has a child social work purview; the Department for Communities and Local Government, which deals with local authorities and their funding; and of course the Home Office itself. That was why I specifically focused my speech from an education point of view, although the Government have chosen to respond to it from a Home Office perspective. Nevertheless, all those different Departments have an important role in relation to this issue and inter-departmental work will obviously be very important.

I wonder to what extent the Minister, who is a Home Office Minister, accepts that local government finances will inevitably have an impact on the quality of child social work and the outcomes for adopted children. What steps will the Government take to ensure that new generations of social workers receive better training on the occurrence of child-to-parent violence, particularly among adopters, and ensure that parents are supported and not blamed? Will there be mandatory training for child social workers on child-to-parent violence, and will future continuous professional development of child social workers place an emphasis on child-to-parent violence?

In addition, will the Government ensure that there is skilled and appropriate therapy available to children who have been removed from violent or neglectful family situations at the start of the adoption, rather than waiting for a crisis to manifest itself? Will there be an assumption that children who have experienced early trauma are likely to become violent themselves if that trauma is left untreated? Why do we wait for the crisis to grow until it is too large, when it could be more easily treated if it was addressed earlier? What steps can the Government take to ensure that the founding principles of the Children Act 1989 do not prevent the impact of violence by children being investigated because the child is not seen to be at risk?

What more can be done to ensure that the link between attachment difficulties and the education system are more closely related? Will the Minister commission a report to identify the scale of this issue and expressly recognise that this is not purely or even primarily an issue of adolescent violence but one that affects families with children of all ages?

Child-to-parent violence blights the lives of too many families; it must be a hidden problem no more.

]]>2018-02-21T16:16:00+00:00Parliamentary and Local Elections | Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | Commons debateshttps://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2018-02-21a.139.3&p=24845#g139.7
The electoral roll would be a good place to start a strategy like that. The Government are perfectly good at finding us when they want our tax, yet an estimated 6 million...The electoral roll would be a good place to start a strategy like that. The Government are perfectly good at finding us when they want our tax, yet an estimated 6 million people—predominantly younger urban voters, particularly those in ethnic minorities—are missing from the electoral roll. Everyone who is on Government registers through the benefit system, the tax system and the health system should be on the electoral roll. The boundary changes based on this flawed register are an undemocratic sham, so why are the Government working to make it more difficult to vote, rather than addressing this national scandal?]]>2018-02-21T00:00:00+00:00